


Sight Unseen

by lejf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Illustrated, M/M, healthy dose of self-loathing, if that counts as, there's a picture at the end.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:31:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7983520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lejf/pseuds/lejf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A turn of tables: this time, Sam's the one who brings somebody back to the motel room for a lay. </p><p>It doesn't sit with Dean very well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sight Unseen

They moved around the country running on quicksand, Sam’s feet slap-slapping the surface as he held Dean’s hand tightly with small fingers. Their father stormed ahead, the wind, bursting into every life they met then curling in on his empty void into nothing. The horizon was coated with water. The sunset set it on low burn.

_(So why an eternal sunset? Dean asked, and Sam said, Because sunsets make me think of endings. And I feel like we’re always so impatiently rushing towards an end._

_But we’re not, Dean said. We’re not gonna end._

_That’s why it’s the sun, Sam said. We can aim for the light but we won’t ever reach it._

_Fingers thickened and grew calloused under his Dean’s hold until they gradually fell away._ )

Quicksand, Sam said, because when their footfalls slowed they began to sink. The long stays meant Sam went to school, tearing through his final year while Dean lay down his mark in the bars and on the girls. They sunk into the town because sometimes they felt like they were so insubstantial, less than ghosts, falling through the world. Falling, deeper, deeper (deeper) into the quicksand. Being ripped out the first time had hurt; they’d left behind skin and blood, but with each passing name on the map it meant less and less because they’d left so much behind that there was nothing left of _them_ at all.

Their memories of places and faces ran into one another. Lost shape like sandcastles crumbling into the tide.

 

 

“I’m out,” Dean called over his shoulder, shrugging on his jacket. “Sleep tight, Sammy.” The motel room door knob was cool under his hand.

The look he received was mostly disgusted. “I’m _sleeping_ in this room.” Sam was already in bed, hair messy, expression so familiarly indignant that Dean felt some part of him ease. Sam was reliable, a constant, would be there after the sun set and the sun rose. He was Dean’s anchor. To stop him drifting away.

“You better hope you’ll be, you know, if you don’t want to hear some serious fucking.”

Sam’s face pinched. The blanket was slipping off his shoulder and— who the hell exactly told Sam to sleep shirtless? Sometimes he wondered if Sam pulled these stunts on purpose. All those tight pants, walking around the motel room with that bare chest, forgetting to bring underwear into the shower...

Well, if Dean brought some girl in and they saw Sam like this, they might just jump his brother instead. There was– a special beauty that’d been growing about Sam. He was _exotic_. Dean had never heard another voice that sounded like Sam, mellow like dusty light through a window pane that’d held fast and watched the seasons turn; never seen someone quite like Sam who had the steepest sloped jaw and a set to his lips that hinted a smile was never too far away.

Sam was the person people would remember. Dean was just an empty pretty face. Go home, look at the billboards as they rushed down the highways, and you’d see the essence of Dean behind the hard-assed models who tried to show off leather jackets and spiked boots. At the end of the day, when that sun set tipped over into night, only thing Dean could get people to remember was a great tumble between the sheets, while for Sam, they’d all remember the man who’d passed into their life, gentle — colours melting into each other — but pieced together so sharply with every contour distinct, with the huge hands that never failed to put hearts back into place.

“I’m just trying to encourage you to go out and get some, man,” Dean said finally, when he realised he’d stared too long. “God knows when you screwed someone last. That Penny chick back in Colorado? Or was it Jenny?”

“You mean Rebecca,” Sam said icily, “and _no._ She was a friend.”

Dean shrugged. He forgot names. He forgot faces. He wondered sometimes if he’d been forgotten, too. “Seriously, _I’d_ be dancing in joy if you picked up some pretty chick. But for now,”— he rolled his shoulder and sent his brother a shark-like smile and watched as he caught Sam’s widened eyes — “guess it’s up to me.”

Silence tumbled in between them, then Sam was suddenly scrambling in his sheets to get up, all bared skin slipping into sight, saying, “Dean, just for _one damn night,_ can’t you _lay_ off the—” but Dean had already turned and shut the door behind him, tasting something bitter on his tongue.

He’d already stayed a thousand times for Sammy and more. He’d ditched dates, stood up against his father, dropped out of school, done everything. Sam couldn’t ask for more. Dean couldn’t give. Dean... he needed _some_ way to be remembered, all right. Otherwise he’d keep ghosting around each town, and even when he hunted, no one would be there counting the monsters or knowing where he’d been. No place he’d go would keep a footprint. The waves came in after he left and washed it all away.

Fucking idiotic, he was. Started to _really_ realise how stupid it was only when he was shouldering his way into the bar. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Filling up empty days with empty sex, hoping to leave a memory behind. Yeah, might as well go get some poor fucking girl pregnant, wouldn’t he? But no— he wasn’t looking to leave any sort of pain. Hoping to leave a girl with a memory of the best one-night stand she’d ever have.

Except when the music throbbed he started to feel like his breaths were coming out-of-time, out of sync, with the rests and not the beats. The headiness of the bodies, slick and sliding against each other, didn’t reach him. He was already in the silence void of the rattling bass. Just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

So when a girl sidled up to him, the figure at the bar, all he could see through the lights were the layers of her makeup and the way she watched him like he was meat. Meaningless. He’d forget her a week down the road, and she’d forget him in the next pair of arms she fell into.

He shouldn’t have come here and left his brother waiting alone and dreading stupid Dean coming back and fucking a girl to the sound of his heartbeat.

The girl hadn’t even gotten out a word before Dean was pulling away from her, away from the lights and the music, back into the ragged arms of night. He was going back to the motel, and he was going to see the wordless gratitude in Sam’s eyes and he was going to make up some bullshit about not feeling up to it tonight and then he was going to sleep until they moved towns again until finally he’d give in to the carnal urge for sex and it would start again like it’d never all happened before.

Dean hated feeling like nothing, but it was a truth, wasn’t it? The world didn’t care for anybody. “I exist!” he could yell at it all he wanted, but it’d stay stubbornly silent because it had absolutely no damn obligation to any godforsaken soul on earth. Best people could do was get lost in the stupidity of daily life and pretend the smallness of it meant they were worth something.

But the smallness of anything was wiped clean of his mind when he threw open the motel door and realised, like there was something desperately fundamentally missing, that Sam was not in the room.

 _Where was Sam?!_ Sam’s bed was cold when Dean ran his hands over it like a madman. Sam couldn’t have– he wouldn’t have– The lamp between their beds was still on. Sam must’ve been planning to come back soon, or maybe he hadn’t willingly gone anywhere in the first place–

Then the door opened behind him with a heart-stopping _click_ and the light poured in to surround two figures stumbling into the room, hands running over broad chests and Sam’s hair behind pulled into a thick-fingered grip–

Blood flooded his ears. Couldn’t think.

Dean was a hair-trigger away from _roaring_ and smashing the– the _man!_ who had his hands all over Sammy. He– He. How _dare_ some fucking pale-faced little shit let his fingers trace the lines of Sam’s body? How _dare_ he look Sam in the eye so reverently as though he knew everything Sam had done, everything Sam deserved? How dare he hook one of his legs up around all of Sam’s firm angles and rut up with a open-mouthed moan?

But all Dean did was stand there, frozen, facing some sort of precipice he hadn’t seen before in the mist. His chest was on fire. It swept up through his veins and stole his breath away.

He hadn’t known Sam liked men. He hadn’t known that– that– all he wanted to do was tear them apart, and by fucking _right_ he was going to! So _what_ if he’d said that he was happy for Sam to find any girl? His eyes were red with what he had to do. Couldn’t see anything else. Couldn’t think. No one, _no one_ held onto Sammy like that. Not a single fucking soul deserved to.

The room was half-eaten up by his strides and his face twisted into a snarl when Sam suddenly looked up, lips still wet from kissing. His eyes were clear. Lucid, liquid, because Sam _knew_ precisely was he was doing; he had chosen every fucking step, and didn’t for a moment regret any one of them.

The clarity pinned Dean at gunpoint.

Sam wanted this. Dean _wasn’t_ protecting his little brother. He wasn’t wanting to rip them apart because Sammy was being manipulated or touched by a greedy, conniving man. No, Dean just wanted to do it because he was a fucking animal who pushed Sam around and demanded what he wanted — because there was a fire in his chest that he was blaming for his insanity.

But it wasn’t the fire. It was all him. All Dean. Always had been. Could only wonder how many times in the past years he’d tied Sam down saying, “It was for your own good!”

He was as bad as their father.

Blood burst on his tongue like something overripe and the taste of it was what wrenched him into reality; he took one more look at his brother (head thrown back, pulling the _dirtygoddamnfilthy_ man closer to his neck) then shoved his way out the room, head suddenly too full. Didn’t look back to meet Sam’s eyes. How sick was he? Bile rising in his throat. Sick that he was so damn selfish, could never do anything right, stole Sam’s choices, fell to his worst instincts every fucking time! He wanted them apart, wanted to watch that undeserving face fill with fear, not because he was protecting Sam, but because— because—

Couldn’t think about that.

Now just look where he was, having his legs give way a step before the Impala as he pulled the doors open and collapsed into the seat. One of the only places where he was home. His other home, by Sam, was being taken up any random twink Sam picked up from the streets. Dean was replaceable. Just like that, in a click of the fingers. He caught sight of himself in the rear-view mirror, his face red to the ears and lips parted with words and a held scream, eyes blown wide. Fodder. He was fodder. There to give everything to his brother and throw himself into the flame. He thought about it for a moment, _really_ thought about it, just stepping onto the pedal and leaving, but he’d ever leave Sam behind. And no amount of drink would wipe away his thoughts tonight.

He crawled into the passenger seats, unseeing. Sam’s second duffel was sitting there and he shoved it aside, listening to weapons clack and rustle, but then its tumble fell into a roar because his idiot brother ( _loved him, too much, too much)_ hadn’t zipped it up. Out spilled black, and—

—there was a picture of Dean.

Sammy was no artist. Dean knew that. It wasn’t a painting to compose odes to. It was a little awkward and lumpy and unfinished. Only vaguely resembled Dean, even. Wasn’t any of that sort of talented stuff, but it was– was– _frank._ There were no outrageous eyelashes or high blush, no pillowed lips. Nothing like that. Just Dean. And though some part in Dean whispered that ‘Just Dean’ meant a failure of a man, one slowly going mad... it was just a picture of Dean, his eyebrows pulled together as he looked for something in the distance.

Nothing special. No halo, but no devil wings, either. Just Dean. Sam picked through all the shit Dean surrounded himself with, all the emptiness, and put down, earnestly, what really was there. Even if the message was tempered a little by the means.

He set the paper away, quietly. The roar in his head dropped away, left the quiet of the night, the dull glow of the motel out the car window. Sam was fucking a man in their motel room. Dean had goaded him into it. Dean’s heart was shrivelling in his chest and it didn’t have a _damn_ right to. He’d brought this on himself.

As the night poured on, sleep starting to slur his mind, he thought, Sammy had lied. They _could_ reach the sun. There Dean went, stumbling after it like a half-blind fool. And when the blaze did flood his sight, maybe it wasn’t the sun at all, but a set of headlights.

The road wasn’t solid under his feet. It was quicksand.

—his wide eyes reflected in the windshield— the horn blared—

(He was in love with Sammy; beautiful, beautiful Sammy who Dean was sure had the entire world in his hands– he wanted to hold Sammy down and be _held_ down, cry out–)

And the light incinerated him.

 

 

When morning came, Dean lay there awake staring at the ceiling, wishing the world would just swallow him up and he could keep running, but time waited for no one, and soon he uncurled from the Impala and tottered back to the motel room. Sam was in the bed there. Alone. Arm flung out as though reaching out for someone to hold close. The blankets had drifted down his body and his whole torso was in view, hard planes.

Dean knew immediately that Sam wasn’t asleep. Hadn’t been for the last few hours.

He jerked his eyes away. He carried a different awareness of his brother’s body, now. Was forbidden to look. He busied himself in the bathroom until he heard the unmistakable sounds of Sam getting up: sheets rustling, a few low grumbles, then the sound of bedsprings creaking. “Lot of fun _you_ had last night,” Dean said, voice half-caught in his throat. Sam stopped moving in the other room.

“Yeah,” Sam said, voice husky. As if that was it. As if ‘yeah’ would suffice. As if Dean didn’t twitch in his pants just from the _sound_ of his brother’s voice, knowing that just last night Sam had been fucking a muscled, slim body into that very mattress.

“Wanted to find a way to tell me you liked dick, Sammy?” Dean moved to the doorway, watching the way the sunlight slipped through the curtains. Sam was a bronze statue sitting at the edge of his bed. His blankets piled in his lap. Dean was grateful for them. If they weren’t there, he wouldn’t be able to stop his own eyes.

“Actually, you’re pretty disappointing, Dean.” That felt like a slap. “I thought you’d notice a long time ago.”

“Poor old me,” he said wryly, shoving his other emotions down. “If I’d known sooner, I woulda invited you to my threesomes.”

Sam’s eyes caught his, wide and off-guard. “What?”

“That’s pretty disappointing, Sam,” Dean repeated, voice laced with mockery. Mocking himself, really, for saying anything in the first place. “Thought you’d have noticed a long time ago.”

Sam’s shock morphed quickly into anger, “You–”

“I _what?”_ Dean shot back, peeling himself from the bathroom doorway and stalking to the foot of the bed. “What do you want to do, huh? Make this a pissing contest when all it’s about is noticing we both took dick sometimes? Yeah, real way to make a big deal out of nothing, _Sammy._ ”

A pair of defiant eyes just lifted to meet his.

“And– and– what the _hell even was that?”_ he demanded, flinging a hand towards the door. “You suddenly gonna make this a habit, huh? Picking up some boy off who the hell knows where and fucking them when I’m tryna sleep? I had half a mind to kick your ass out seven ways to Sunday, bringing in some random little sonnova—!”

“—But you didn’t,” Sam said sharply. “You didn’t.”

Dean lost his words.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

He jerked his head stiffly. “Because I’m a good damn brother, that’s why.”

“You think _you’re a good damn brother?!”_ Sam’s voice erupted. He sat up higher. Blanket slipped lower. Dean’s eyes nearly wavered. “Yeah, because you bring all those girls in and kick me out, because you pick them up at every town and blow through them and never listen to _me_ complain! You _tell me,_ Dean!”

“That’s not _nearly_ the same thing–” because you don’t feel what I do when I see you fucking into that boy’s mouth with your wet, filthy tongue.

“—Yeah? And why not _?_ ”

The words lashed inside Dean’s mouth, but he kept his lips shut. Had to. Their absence hung heavy in the air.

“God, Dean,” Sam said, and Dean caught the faintest tremor in his voice. “You’re so fucking stupid sometimes.” Then he lunged out of the bed, and he was _naked,_ Dean tore his eyes away, yelping, “Sam!” but a pair of strong arms grabbed his and shoved him hard against the wall.

“The _fuck_ , Sam?!” He writhed against his brother’s hold.

“Those eyes of yours never see a thing,” Sam said, his eyes undressing Dean, body pressed all up against him, a thick line of heat. “You thought I was surprised you’d said you took dick? No, Dean, just surprised you’d—” Sam bucked up against him, and Dean bit back a moan. “—Admit you wanted a dirty, dirty, threesome. With your own _brother._ ”

Dean couldn’t think of anything to say. Mind wasn’t working properly, with Sam flush up against him like this, enveloping him in everything that was safety and warmth and home and at the same time, the lightning-shot of arousal. “Sam–” he began, cut off when Sam reached down and palmed his dick right through his jeans. “Oh god, Sam–”

Sam’s fingers were flicking open the button, peeling down the zipper, his other hand coming down to cradle Dean’s face, and then his mouth descended, hot and hungry, worshipping Dean’s lips within every inch of his life. Their breaths mingled against each other — like mist, fogging up his eyes. “You _i_ _diot_ , Dean, you idiot, really think I would’ve fucked that boy here, in _our_ room, in _our_ life?”

“ _I_ do,” Dean gasped back into his mouth, teeth clacking against Sam’s. His jeans were piled by his feet and warm fingers wrapped around his dick in a long, insistent pull that made his hips jerk. Sam cupped his face and shielded him with his whole body, wrenched Dean’s shirt off; Dean was drowning. Sam was everywhere. “Don’t I? Take those pretty no-eyed girls in here and– and–” Sam bit down on his lip, hard. The pain shot straight through him like jagged lightning. Dean was falling apart. “Sam!” he cried, arching his back, his brother’s hand working him fast, slick from the pre-come coating his fingers. “I’d deserve it, you, you fucking someone else–”

“Never,” was a whisper on his lips before Sam — when had he gotten so big? Holy shit — hoisted Dean up from the wall and Dean wrapped his naked legs around Sam’s bare back, felt Sam’s huge hand hold him close, let himself fall into Sam, their dicks sliding against each other wet with pre-come and Sam’s fingers wrapped around them both, jacking them harshly. Each stroke felt like a spike, pinning him in place and in time, pulling moans from both their throats.

He kissed Sam, open-mouth and wet, tongues sliding against each other. “Sammy, Sammy,” he said, like a prayer. Suddenly he was no longer in the air, but pressed down into the mattress, Sam all around him.

There was no sun. Were no headlights. The brightness was all right here. Right here, in his arms.

“ _I_ carried you out,” he said between the sharpness of breathing, every nerve alight. He’d never been so alive, heart pounding in his chest like bird wings flapping against his ribs, Sam’s pulse throbbing under his touch, skin burning against skin, “ _I_ did, _I_ did _!_ ” Sam was the only thing real in his world, the person who didn’t touch and go, and it was with him that Dean, too, was finally real. It was always only Sam that Dean came back to. “ _I_ – **_I_** carried you out from the fire, **_I_ ** taught you how to read, I–”

“–I know, Dean,” Sam murmured into his mouth, breath coming in heavy pants. “I know–”

“– _I_ taught you how to hold a gun, how to write your stupid fucking essays, how to– to–” Sam jerked up against him, their wet tips slipping against each other and shafts dragging. His head arched back. “Sammy!”

“I know, Dean,” Sam said, hand twisting until Dean was swallowed up by the white and he was coming all over their chests, eyes glazed out. “I see you, I see you, I’ve _always_ seen you, loved you since–”

Then Sam lost his words, too, they got choked up in everything he was feeling, and Dean saw for a moment his brother, beautiful and gleaming, swept up at the peak of sensation, dick heavy and red between his fingers, coming with a long cry that sounded a lot like, “Dean!”

When he came down, he crashed into Dean like a breaking wave, mouth devouring his like he’d never get enough. He ran his fingers through Dean’s hair, down his back, legs sliding against Dean’s, slowing to a coil, a languid rolling wave, like he just wanted to soak Dean in.

Finally, Dean spoke, melting against Sam’s touch, “You painted a picture of me.”

Sam didn’t stop running his hands over Dean’s skin, pressing a light kiss just below his collarbone. “Forgot to throw it away.”

“It’s–” important. “Why would you do that?”

Sam smiled back, dimples appearing in a way Dean was only too familiar with. “I never needed it to see you, Dean.” He sat up. Rested his hands on the expanse of Dean’s chest. “You could’ve slept with all the girls in the world and every morning the one you took with you in your car would’ve still been me. You’re right here. I’m right here. I’m the one who counts every mile marker we drive by.”

Dean would never grow tired of that smile.

“I promise you, Dean. I promise to Hell and back— I’ll make sure you’ll never be lost or unseen in your whole life.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hope the final image didnt like destroy the writing and make the whole story ugly. those are also some pretty gross demon-eye banners, too. i might take down the dean pic if i cringe too hard 1 month later.
> 
> i have an exam tmr and i wrote this and drew this instead. im gonna die.


End file.
